Our immediate aim is to verify our preliminary findings that a bilayer membrane, which we have developed, can cover full-thickness skin wounds in guinea pigs, protecting wounds from infection and fluid loss for over 28 days without requiring "change" following grafting. Additional objectives to be pursued in this evolving design are control of scar formation and control of wound contraction. These objectives will be pursued by independent variation of four structural parameters of the collagen-glycosaminoglycan (GAG) membranes: crosslink density, "bound" GAG content, mean pore size and lattice order of collagen fibrils. The proposed research is a continuation of an ongoing collaborative effort between a polymer engineering team at MIT and an experimental surgery team at Shriners Burns Institute.